At Apple's "Spring Forward" press event on Monday, March 9, the electronics company expounded upon its plans to release a smartwatch and revealed updates to its MacBook computer line, among other announcements. Underneath their focus on "innovation" and "design," however, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other participating speakers neglected to address growing concerns about the proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management technologies distributed with its products and services, which only serve to extend the company's oppression of computer users and their freedoms.

The free software movement is a global phenomenon, and we want the LibrePlanet conference to reflect that. That's why, wherever you are, you are invited to participate remotely by watching the livestream and participating in the discussion via chat.

"To what extent do the ideas of free software extend to hardware? Is it a moral obligation to make our hardware designs free, just as it is to make our software free? Does maintaining our freedom require rejecting hardware made from nonfree designs?"

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, USA -- Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and MIT's Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) are once again teaming up to bring the LibrePlanet free software conference to Cambridge, March 21-22, 2015 at the Stata Center at MIT. LibrePlanet is an annual conference for people who care about their digital freedoms, bringing together software developers, policy experts, activists, and computer users to learn skills, share accomplishments, and face challenges facing the free software movement. LibrePlanet 2015 will feature programming for all ages and experience levels.